A New Vision for the Arts

Tonight was the "vernissage" or opening night of our church's participation in the 2005 Ateliers d'Artistes de Belleville, a region wide art display. Normally, over 200 places are open in Belleville with different artist's work. To qualify, an artist has to reside in Belleville or have his/her studio there.

Our main church building hosted the work of 4 primary artists: clothes designer Claire Serex, painters Marc Clémentin and Antonio Pinedo, and photographer Thomas Nintcheu. Our offices had the work of 15 developing artists.

Joy & Kim Saquing carried over a book that I ordered. It is titled Visual Faith: Art, Theology, and Worship in Dialogue by William Dyrness (Baker, 2001). It looks like a good one. I went to the end first to read the conclusion. Dyrness writes a section titled "A New Vision for the Arts" (pp. 156-7). Here it is:

God's people need to recover their visual imagination. As noted, there are many reasons for our present situation. The most pressing factor is the changing cultural situation in which we find ourselves. Culture has made a turn toward the visual, and with the rise of new media, visual image has come to occupy an unprecedented central place in our lives. Someone calculated that a Puritan in early America listened to an average of five thousand sermons in his or her lifetime; an American growing up today will watch at least seven thousand TV programs and a couple thousand movies in his or her lifetime. While the world of our forefathers and mothers was mediated to them through the preached Word, ours is interpreted in terms of images. We noted the ambiguous character of these developments. When images come without verbal context and interpretation, they may, critics argue, discourage critical thinking and analysis. But there is also evidence that such images can stimulate a new visual literacy and imaginative potential.

Christians should not play the visual against the verbal. For Christians, who are people of the Book, the verbal revelation of God's Word will always have unique authority. But we also noted the important role the visual played in Scripture and, obviously, in God's purposes for his creatures. In an earlier chapter, we reviewed the biblical grounds for affirming the visual as theologically significant. God lovingly fashioned a creation that sparkles with signals of his transcendence, and he in fact entered into the creature's depths in Christ and began there the process of transformation from within. The temple, the visions of the prophets, and spectacle of Pentecost, and the vision of Patmos all serve as precedents to encourage Christians to exercise a sanctified visual imagination. They even give us warrant to claim the stimulus of the Holy Spirit for the project.

There are no adequate grounds to resist this turn to the visual--no reason to believe the visual is inherently bad. Theologically, though all cultural trends, as all people, are flawed, they are also redeemable. Through the presence of the Spirit, God works in culture through what is called common grace. On historical grounds, moreover, there are reasons to applaud these developments. The Christian faith, throughout most of its history, was conveyed at least as adequately through its buildings and images as through its theological texts. These visible forms sometimes provided a more striking interpretation of Scripture than the texts of theologians--they were certainly more accessible to people. Indeed, these "media" were only rarely, during Christianity's iconoclastic periods, seen as being in competition with each other. They were rather seen as complementary. Why can we not recover this wholesome synergy?

So while it offers special challenges for the Christian, the turn toward the visual, on the part of our culture, rests on a sound instinct. It reflects the fact that we are creatures of space and time. It suggests that the arts, even the popular arts, have intrinsic attraction. If we are to be citizens of this time, we must learn to speak (and enjoy) this visual language, even as we seek to translate the gospel into its colors and tones.